[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 43 (Monday, March 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1766-S1767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE EQUALITY ACT

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I speak now to a bill we will introduce 
this Wednesday, the Equality Act. The Equality Act will be introduced 
by a group of us in the Senate and by another group led by Congressman 
Cicilline in the House.
  It is an appropriate moment for us to ponder in this Chamber why this 
piece of legislation is part of our American journey toward the vision 
of opportunity for all and why we all should be supporting this 
beautiful legislative proposal.
  My involvement in the Equality Act began in my home State of Oregon, 
when I was serving in the legislature there, and we had the question of 
how can we change the systematic discrimination against our LGBTQ 
brothers and sisters. How can we give them the same opportunity 
everyone else has?
  So we came together and said we should do an Oregon Equality Act, an 
Oregon Equality Act that would create the same basic protections the 
Civil Rights Act has for race and gender and ethnicity.
  We went about doing that. I was the speaker. I worked very hard to 
make that happen, and we succeeded. We ended discrimination in Oregon 
based on who you are or whom you love. Discrimination should be ended 
across the whole country.
  I arrived here in January 2009, and I was assigned to the Health, 
Education,

[[Page S1767]]

Labor, and Pensions Committee--the Health Committee. I asked Senator 
Kennedy if I could possibly serve on this committee to help fight for 
health and education and labor, and he arranged that. I will never 
forget having his voicemail on my phone saying: Yes, you are a member 
of the committee.
  A few months later came the real surprise. Senator Kennedy was 
struggling with the brain cancer that killed him later that year, and 
through his team, he asked me to take on one of his civil rights bills, 
the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
  That was to end discrimination for LGBTQ Americans in employment, 
give them a fair chance to get a job here. Well, this is something that 
had been part of our Equality Act in Oregon. We had gotten that done, 
and because I helped lead that fight, he asked me to take over and lead 
the fight to end employment nondiscrimination.
  That was 2009. It took 4 years of work--work with the community and 
work with our legislators inside this building. Then, finally, in 2013, 
the time was ripe to put it on the floor and have this debate. This 
Chamber, with the supermajority, bipartisan vote, said, yes, let's end 
discrimination in employment, and we passed the Employment Non-
Discrimination Act.
  Then I went over to the House, and it died without consideration. I 
got together with the advocates and asked, where do we go from here 
with the House not acting? Do we simply continue to reintroduce the 
Employment Non-Discrimination Act--which had been first introduced in 
1996, first considered on this floor and almost passed just one vote 
short in 1998. Do we continue to do that?
  Out of that conversation, we developed a different vision. Let's do a 
full Equality Act like Oregon has done, like a number of other States 
have done and end discrimination not just in one sector or another, not 
just in places of accommodation, not just in financial transactions, 
not just in serving on a jury, not just in terms of housing, not just 
in terms of employment, let's base the Equality Act on providing the 
full spectrum, the full measure of protection for opportunity.
  I thought that was a pretty good idea. Later that year, I introduced 
the Equality Act in partnership with many others. We laid out that 
first Equality Act in the Johnson Room--the Johnson Room, which looks 
out at the Supreme Court and reminds us of 1964. In 1964, when the 
Civil Rights Act was passed, driven forward by President Johnson, who 
came from Texas, who came from the South, and said: It is time to end 
discrimination in the United States of America based on race and gender 
and ethnicity. He drove that legislation through, and it has been a 
foundation we haven't questioned since because we know it is right. We 
know it is part of this journey of the United States of America going 
back to our Declaration of Independence, going back to our 
Constitution--a vision of opportunity for all and liberty for all.
  We know it was imperfect, and we have worked now for almost two and a 
half centuries to perfect that vision of opportunity. Senator Ted 
Kennedy once said: ``The promise of America will never be fulfilled as 
long as justice is denied to even one among us.'' The promise of 
America--that promise of America that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently 
put, in 1776--is a vision where we are all created equal, with 
``unalienable Rights . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of 
Happiness.''
  How can that vision be propelled, sustained, and promoted if, in 
fact, as you pursue your life, the door is slammed shut on you, saying, 
``No. There is opportunity for that individual but not you,'' and the 
door is slammed shut--liberty for that person but not you, and the door 
is slammed shut.
  We have come to understand that is just wrong. It is completely 
incompatible with the vision that was laid out, the vision of our 
Declaration and the vision of our Constitution.
  In fact, in this Chamber, we start with a pledge, and we talk about 
one Nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Classrooms 
across the country start their day with a pledge of liberty and justice 
for all, but what is liberty if the door is slammed shut? That is the 
denial of liberty. That is the opposite of freedom. That is the 
crushing of opportunity.
  So the story of America goes forward. The fight goes forward. We had 
the 1964 Civil Rights Act that was a culmination itself of decades of 
work. We had the voting rights struggle during the same time period, 
and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. We fought a number of battles--
battles of discrimination against those with disabilities. We fought 
for workers' rights, but our LGBTQ brothers and sisters still face 
discrimination all across this country. We are still in a situation 
where so many doors are slammed shut.
  We have had a lot of progress in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, we 
had the Defense of Marriage Act, and now we don't. We had don't ask, 
don't tell in the military, and now we don't. We had only three States 
that recognized same-sex marriage, and now it is the law of the land as 
the Supreme Court weighed in and said it is required by the vision of 
our Constitution.
  Discrimination in all kinds of ways is still legal in 29 States--more 
than half the country. In more than half the country, you can be 
married in the morning, denied service at a restaurant for lunch, fired 
from your job in the afternoon, and kicked out of your apartment that 
night because discrimination is still legal against LGBTQ Americans in 
29 States.
  LBJ gave a definition of freedom. He said: ``Freedom is the right to 
be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in 
dignity and promise to all others.'' Discrimination is the opposite of 
freedom.
  Let freedom ring in this Chamber as we introduce the Equality Act 
later this week. Let freedom ring down the hall as the House of 
Representatives holds a debate in committee and on the floor in the 
months to come, and when that freedom bell rings so loudly that they 
pass that bill, the Equality Act in that Chamber, let them bring it 
down this hallway right into the Senate; that we might debate the same 
and put an end to the extraordinary, disgraceful discrimination that 
still marks the lives and slams the doors shut on millions and millions 
of Americans every single day.
  I yield the floor.

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